Understanding Trans Racialized Youth Autonomy in Health Care Decision Making in Ontario

This thesis re-evaluates the concept of autonomy and the possibilities for trans racialized youth to practice it in current health care decision making contexts. After discussing access to health care in Ontario for this demographic using diverse research, an analytical foundation is laid using legal pluralism, relational autonomy, transgender theory and disidentification theory. The study uses Photovoice with trans racialized youth to produce visual texts analysed using thematic network analysis. Secondly the study considers how together law and medicine discursively work to encourage law-makers and health care providers to undermine the autonomy of trans racialized youth. Authoritative diagnostic and clinical texts are examined alongside decisions from courts and tribunals where trans racialized youth are present. Despite the autonomy granted in Ontarios Health Care Consent Act structural vulnerability, judicial paternalism, failure to mandate youth awareness of health care rights and professional ignorance restricts the autonomy practice of trans racialized youth.